Voting Equipment
The major voting equipment consists of voting compartments and ballot boxes. The style and construction of these items will have a considerable impact on their costs (see Ballot Boxes and Seals and Voting Compartments). Cost comparisons will need to be made to determine whether it is more cost-effective to use durable wooden, plastic or metal equipment or to use disposable ballot boxes and voting compartments. The more durable or permanent equipment will have greater transport, repair and storage costs, but it can be used for subsequent elections. Disposable equipment may not give a sufficient image of security in some environments or be useable under some weather conditions.
Other voting equipment needs will include seals or locks for ballot boxes and any special security devices, such as ink applicators and special lighting, required for voter eligibility controls.
Where voting is automated, through the use of computers or other types of voting machines, provisions for hardware acquisition and maintenance, emergency system support, set-up and testing of machines and installation of ancillary communications equipment may be required.
Office Equipment
Voting stations and temporary office facilities may need to be provided with additional office equipment, though it would be preferable to arrange for the use of fully equipped facilities (this latter course may have not only basic cost advantages but will decrease transport costs). In general, cost- effectiveness will be better served if additional office equipment requirements are leased rather than purchased, though this will depend on opportunities for their future use and comparison of the rental cost for the period required against the purchase cost. For temporary local offices equipment requirements that may need to be covered in voting operations budgets include:
- furniture, such as tables, chairs, stands, filing cabinets;
- photocopying facilities;
- fax machines.
For voting stations, costs of additional furniture requirements (tables, chairs, secure cabinets for storage, barriers for crowd control and facilities), additional lighting, portable power supply generators, portable toilets, and water supply to bring voting station layouts and facilities up to required standards may also need to be estimated. Minor office equipment items such as calculators for voting station managers and local election administrators may also need to be included.
Disposable alternatives, such as cardboard tables and queue control barriers for use in voting stations, should also be investigated to determine their cost-effectiveness compared to the leasing of durable equipment.
Computer Software and Hardware
Costs incurred in developing, implementing and maintaining computer systems for voting operations purposes will need to be covered. These may be general management systems, such as for election staffing records and payments or financial management, or systems directly concerned with voting, such as systems for voting station resource allocation and control, computerised voting, candidate nominations processing, election information services or ballot counts and result calculation. Whether all such costs are estimated against and paid from funding for a specific election will depend on accounting policies and what other sources of development funding are available to the electoral management body. Systems costings will need to take into account:
- costs of hardware (computers, monitors, printers, other peripherals and any installation costs) and additional power supplies;
- any network costs, for line or link installation and/or lease and data transfer costs;
- development, testing and implementation costs for software, and any purchase or licence fees payable for externally developed software;
- maintenance and technical support costs.
Operational support costs will also need to be included for any additional staff, transport, supplies, office furniture or premises required.
Materials
Estimates of costs of materials for voting operations would include:
- ballots and, where required, ballot envelopes;
- reference and training materials for use by staff and trainers, such as manuals and workbooks, training aids (audio-visual materials), checklists, copies of election legislation and regulations;
- reference and information materials for use by candidates, parties or other external participants in the election, such as security forces;
- election forms for use by voters, candidates or parties or for the maintenance of official election records;
- election administration forms and labels for the control of recruitment, training, resources allocations, finance, assets control;
- copies of voters lists for use in voting stations;
- information posters and pamphlets;
- general stationery items such as packaging tape, string, notebooks, pens, pencils, envelopes, rulers and rubber bands, as well as any specific needs defined in the election legal framework, such as authentication stamps for ballots;
- signs for use in or outside voting stations;
- packaging materials, such as heavy duty envelopes or bags, boxes or other containers for transport of election materials.
Comparisons of the effectiveness of different alternatives for materials needs can produce significant cost savings. Some examples include:
- investigating ballot printing alternatives--use of special papers and security print techniques may not be necessary in all environments, e.g., where ballots can be authenticated by polling officials when issued;
- whether the additional value added by higher technology and expensive processes, such as production of audio-visual materials, is sufficient to justify their use over simpler and less costly formats;
- comparing costs of different locations of production, taking freight into account;
- producing reference materials in sectioned, loose leaf format that can be returned, amended if necessary and reused in future elections
- investigating different form production methods to determine which is most cost-effective for the required print runs, and minimising more expensive design features such as coloured papers and print--lower volumes of forms may be produced more cheaply in-house by photocopying;
- using general government bulk supply contracts for stationery items or other common use items.
Premises Rental
Premises may need to be rented for local election administration offices, special voting locations, voting stations and vote counting centres. In systems where state premises, such as schools, must be made available free of charge for voting purposes, voting station rental costs are only going to be relevant for areas where no suitable free of charge building is available. In considering the rental costs, the following factors should be taken into account:
- base rent of the building;
- any bonds to be paid;
- any additional service costs, such as electricity, lighting, heating, and cleaning.
It would generally be preferable to secure premises that already contain the furniture and facilities required.
Security
The level of security that is required will vary widely in different election environments and should be determined through risk assessments. Where security is provided by the police or military, this may be provided for out of their own budgets, or could be transferred by the electoral management body from its election funds. Cost calculations will need to encompass any requirements for security during the whole election period, not only on voting day and during the count, and recognise any associated costs that may be relevant, such as for police overtime, vehicle maintenance, fuel, and temporary accommodations.
